Interlude
by Natchez
Summary: One-shot about five minutes after dark. Denise/Moray.


**A/N:** While I am a newcomer to "Paradise" fanfic, I do have several stories elsewhere on this site. This is one that takes place after Denise leaves The Paradise in season 1, while Moray is still engaged to Katherine Glendenning. Just a bit of one-shot fluff. Enjoy and please, read and review!

_Disclaimer: I do not own or operate The Paradise_

* * *

Denise set the empty coal scuttle outside the store's back door for the coal boy to fill in the morning. It had been a long, if rewarding day. Uncle Edmund's gentlemen's neckties were selling well, which, as Denise had predicted, kept food on the table.

She knew she was working herself to death, but it was the only way she could keep from thinking about - John. He haunted her. His dark eyes watched her in her dreams, he stalked her thoughts during the day. His "little champion." Piffle. As if she were some sort of china doll. Why, at her uncle's store, she was managing the business! She wasn't merely a shopgirl under Miss Audrey's gimlet eye. Although, she had to admit to herself, Miss Audrey had proved a friend, or at least had provided wise counsel to her.

Denise wiped her hands from carrying the filthy scuttle and took a deep breath. The other girls from The Paradise were having a drink, no doubt, but she couldn't afford to spend valuable shillings on drink. Every farthing meant food or rent. They weren't to be squandered.

As she turned to go inside, a hand clamped over her mouth and a strong arm pulled her against a male body. She smelled alcohol - the strong Scotch whiskey Padraic sold in his pub. "Denise," Moray's voice ground into her ear. "Denise, how I have missed you." She struggled, but even drunk, John was too strong for her. His mouth was hot on her neck and even as she tried to squirm out of his arms, her body betrayed her by molding to his.

"Kiss me, Denise. Kiss me, you tempting creature," he said, turning her and assaulting her mouth with his. He pushed her against the stone wall, his arms around her, one hand at the nape of her neck, insisting she surrender to his kiss.

She gasped for air as he trailed his mouth down her neck, his mustache tickling her skin and his hand undoing the top buttons of her bodice. Denise could feel his lips down nearly to her breasts, as his hand swept down her back, to the curve of her bottom, kneading it through her petticoats.

"Moray!" she gasped. "You must stop this!"

"Call me John," he growled against her neck, "or I'll take you here in the alleyway."

His words were vulgar, but they sent a thrill down her spine. But still… "J-John. Please. You have to let me go. I cannot… I will not do this. Not here, not with you."

"You're in my blood, Denise," he said, but raised his head and stood with his hands on her shoulders, bracing her against the cold wall. He was breathing heavily. "I dream about you at night. I wake up and I am wet with sweat because I want you. I dream about kissing your skin all over your body, about being inside your body."

Denise's eyes were wide as saucers at John's explicit words. Surely, he was completely foxed to be speaking so. "John, you are very, very drunk. You are vulgar. Please release me."

His eyes were like the onyx buttons in Haberdashery. "I am vulgar, Denise. And I am extremely inebriated. One thing about Padraic MacTavish's whiskey, though: it enables me to speak the truth, something I am not often capable of when sober. So if I am vulgar, at least I am also honest."

"You need to go home. You will have a crashing headache in the morning."

He snorted, but then gave a resigned sigh. "I will go now, Denise. But I will be back. And then, I will give us what we both want - what we both desperately _need_."

"Do not come back, John. You are engaged to be married. Leave me alone, please."

"Wait for me, Denise. I will be back for you," he said, then he dropped his hands and was gone into the night.

Denise turned and put her forehead against the cool wall. "What am I to do?" she whispered.

* * *

Moray reeled down the hall of The Paradise to his rooms.

"Mr. Moray, sir," Jonas' voice growled behind him.

Moray turned. "Yes, Jonas. What is it?"

"Mr. Moray, stay away from Denise Lovett. There's nothing for you there."

Blast it! Did the bloody man see _everything_? Moray wondered if he were some sort of diabolical crystal ball reader.

"Don't overstep your bounds, Jonas. My personal life is not your concern." Moray was holding on to his temper for dear life.

"Everything at The Paradise is my concern, sir."

All Moray's pent-up frustration erupted. He shoved Jonas against the wall. "Mind your own damned business, Jonas! Mention this again and I will bloody well have you dismissed! Don't test me on this."

Jonas' face grew even harder. "Of course, sir. I understand."

Moray released the man and went into his rooms. He locked the door behind him and collapsed on to his bed. "Why can't I love Katherine? Why do I pine for that golden-haired girl?" he asked of the air. But no answer came. Moray knew the answer. It was because he had wanted Denise since the first moment he laid eyes on her. He wanted to claim her sweet purity, her ethereal beauty. He had told her the truth. He wanted to kiss every inch of her ivory skin, to feel her hair ripple down through his fingers as he removed her hairpins, one by one, to feel her writhe beneath his body as he thrust inside her. It was fair to say John Moray had never wanted a woman as urgently, as physically, as he wanted Denise Lovett. And that was the hell of it. He was engaged to be married, mostly for business purposes. But he knew Katherine Glendenning, for all her loveliness, could never stir his blood like Denise.

Oh, Denise. Why did she have to leave her little town to come and torment him? Why couldn't she have stayed in Peebles?

Moray kicked off his boots and shucked trousers, waistcoat, necktie and shirt. He would, indeed, have a crashing headache in the morning. Denise was right. But then again, she always was.


End file.
